The present invention relates in general to integrated circuit device structures and their fabrication. More specifically, the present invention relates to vertical FETs with a strained channel
Integrated circuit devices are a set of electronic circuits on one small chip of semiconductor material. A typical integrated circuit device includes many transistors. As feature sizes have become smaller, different types of transistor architectures have been developed. Among the newer types of transistor architectures is the vertical field effect transistor in which the current direction is vertical (normal to the substrate). It has been found that inducing strain in the channel of a vertical FET is useful to improve carrier mobility and device performance.